Page 10 of Breakaway

“No—I mean, well, yes, a cookie, but it’s a flower... cookie. For you.”

It had sounded much better in his head.

“Stop giving the guy such a hard time,” the other girl at the desk said with a laugh. “Give him some napkins, at least.”

The beauty eyed him suspiciously. “How did you know that I worked here?”

“I saw you at the desk.” Again, it had sounded so much more suave and less stalkerish in his head.

“Uh-huh...” she deadpanned.

“Morgan! You’re awful.” The other girl laughed. “Give the poor guy a break.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, but her words were still audible. “He looks nervous. I mean, he did spill coffee all over himself. And he is kinda cute—look at those broad shoulders.”

Travis cleared his throat as he awkwardly stood in front of the desk. “Yeah, so, there’s a hole in the carpet here.” He pushed it around with his shoe to prove his point. “My slide got caught in it, and I tripped, spilling my coffee. Someone could get hurt.”

The girl snapped into professional mode. “Oh, I’ll take care of that right away. We can’t have our visitors falling and getting hurt.” She turned her attention to Travis, her expression softening. “Can I buy you another coffee?”

“No thanks, I’m fine.” Using his newfound information, thanks to her co-worker, he asked in his best pick-up voice, “But, Morgan, I wondered if you’d want to go get a coffee with me sometime?”

He grinned like a fool, because thanks to her co-worker, he now knew her name.

Morgan looked down at his coffee-soaked shirt.

He smirked, proud of accomplishing the simple task of asking her out. “I’d prefer to drink my coffee rather than wear it.”

“Um...” She looked to her friend, who shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

Morgan wrote her number down on a piece of paper and handed it to him.

“Great!” Travis looked up to see the other rookies from the hotel entering the building. “I have to run, but I’ll call you.” He waved the paper in the air.

“Travis?” she said with question, reading the name on the coffee cup. “I’m assuming your name is Travis?”

“Yeah, Travis. I guess I should’ve led with that.” He mentally berated himself for accidently excluding that important bit of information. Taking a breath, he regained his composure, smirked, and added in his best flirty voice, “By the way, I’m Travis.”

“Nice to meet you, Travis.” Morgan smiled sheepishly, and her cheeks darkened.

Even not knowing anything about her, he was convinced that as soon as he turned away, she was going to start whispering with her friend about him. He had that effect on girls.

“It was nice to meet you, too, Morgan. I’ll call you.” Travis grinned and hurried towards the exit.

“Thanks for the coffee, Travis,” she called, as he joined his friends.

When he looked back at Morgan, she was already busy on the phone and not paying any attention to him as he joined his friends. Huh.

“What are you all smiley about?” Ben asked, as he shoved Travis playfully.

“Me? Nothin’.” He tried to mute his grin to avoid being hassled, but he knew he was smiling like a Cheshire cat, and that wasn’t helpful to his plight.

“I think T-man was putting the moves on the new girl at the desk,” Noah teased.

“Oh, so she’s new?” he asked, then winced as the words exited his mouth, knowing that was all the confirmation the guys needed.

“Yes, loverboy. She’s new. Only been here a few days. Maybe she’s a temp, I dunno. There’s no name on her badge, so I assumed she was just a temp,” Noah said.

“No name on her badge? You were close enough to notice that? So were you trying to make moves on her?” The feeling that took residence in his gut was both unfamiliar and uncomfortable, as he thought about the possibility of Morgan going on a date with Noah.

Noah shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. But she turned me down.”